All or nothing – why do we think this has to be the way?

I have just had 45 minutes browsing the web randomly following some interesting links which we all know is a great way to waste some productive time! Anyway I was reading an article that was commenting on flipped learning. If you have never come across this, it is a way of reversing the learning experience where students look at a lecture (or at least the knowledge bit) before they arrive in class. Once they arrive they are set on to tasks where the lecturer acts as a mentor and supports them through the application of the knowledge in examples and activities. I am not criticising the comments as they are an opinion and we need people to have these but what struck me was that in many cases of adoption of new ideas we so often go to extremes and see these things as the ‘next great thing’ and try to replace everything we do with this. We are in fear of throwing baby out with the bath water if we aren’t careful, surely we need to evaluate the best approach to teaching something rather than simply trying to teach everything through the same approach. The best teachers are those who have good subject knowledge, understands and can apply a range of strategies, understand technology and how it can impact on learning and the most important bit can apply these critically to learning. (Take a look at TPACK http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/tpack/ if you want to know more)They know when to apply flipped learning and how to achieve impact through it in the classroom but also know when not use it. Lets’ not get drawn into a ‘one approach works for all’, it’s all about use what is right for that learning.

Although this sounds like a strange place to start I hope I can make some sense of it. The reason for starting with Einstein is the quote he once made defining insanity and if you haven’t seen this it goes something like; ‘Insanity: doing the same thing over and over ... Continue reading →